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Kindelspire: Binders full of kudos

How's Business

Posted:
10/21/2012 11:32:14 AM MDT

Updated:
10/21/2012 11:35:23 AM MDT

We have binders full of congratulations to hand out this week, so let's get right to it.

Our first tip of the hat goes to the North Metro Commuter Rail Line, which picked up an international award from the North America Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum. According to a news release sent by infrastructure-oriented Move Colorado, the award was one of two "project of the year awards" that went to Colorado infrastructure projects. An independent panel of judges voted on the winners.

The North Metro Commuter Rail Line received its award in the "Job/Opportunity Creation Project of the Year" category.

As it stands now, the line is 18.4 miles long, extending from Union Station in downtown Denver up to 162nd Avenue in Northern Adams County. I think it needs to become longer.

You may recall that earlier this month, the Longmont City Council voted unanimously to join the North Metro Line if it would bring commuter rail to Longmont faster. Longmont is scheduled to be the end of the line for the Northwest Rail Line, which won't get FasTracks (Ha! The name still cracks me up!) here until 2044. A lot of us likely will have reached the end of the line by then.

There are details to be worked out, but we already know the North Metro Line will be faster and likely much cheaper. And that is the whole point of commuter rail, right? Faster and cheaper?

We love Lafayette and Louisville, but Longmont needs to hop on the North Metro line. Tell BNSF to take its train tracks and stick them in a tunnel way deep under the Continental Divide.

By the way, the other Colorado infrastructure award went to Xcel Energy, but given its recent decision to ban banners, flags and other decorations from its utility poles, starting Jan. 1, I'll decline from doffing my lid to them.

According to a story in the Camera, "The utility says its streetlights weren't designed to bear the weight of banners, flags and decorations and that those objects can catch gusts of wind that could topple the poles, especially those corroded over time by magnesium chloride de-icer. The company also worries about people climbing the poles to bolt on objects and falling."

Waah, waah, waah. Thank goodness Longmont owns its own utility so it doesn't have to put up with such lawyer-fueled paranoia. And I don't blame towns such as Lafayette and Louisville for being upset, because they rely on those banners to spread the word about upcoming festivals and the like. So phooey on Xcel.

But we digress. Anothercongratulations -- I think -- goes to the groups that have dedicated (as of this writing) $447,500 to defeat Ballot Question 300, the vote to ban fracking in the city of Longmont.

Previously, the biggest chunk of money spent on defeating a Longmont ballot initiative was close to that dollar amount, spent by the group fighting a vote that would have allowed residents to use the fiber-optic cable that Longmont had installed more than a decade ago.

The first vote failed, but last year -- despite more than $418,000 being spent -- voters passed the measure, and now Longmont is allowed to use its own fiber-optic network however it sees fit. Until voters spoke, state law had prohibited that, and the incumbent cable and high-speed Internet providers liked it that way just fine.

Money may be speech in this country, but it can't cast a ballot. Yet.

I think that however 300 turns out, congratulations are due to the folks who worked to get it on the ballot (spending $9,938 to do so, so far). They took on arguably the most powerful industry on the planet -- oil and gas -- and have already won a victory in bringing light to the issue of hydraulic fracturing near populated areas.

Let's see: 49,000-plus wells in Colorado, 18 inspectors. Imagine how many more inspectors could have been hired for $447,500.

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